Session Formats

The Groundwork gathering will include virtual learning opportunities that are designed to be reflective and spark dialogue and action. The session formats are described below. Each session will also be part of one of our learning tracks. 

Armchair Travel Tours

Drawing of an armchair

Asynchronous (pre-recorded video or audio file)

Armchair Travel Tour presenters will take you on a virtual tour of their program, organization, project or community to provide a glimpse of their community embedded work in action, and how they are responding to the pandemic and movements of our time. Presenters will:

  • Be real, reflective, and transparent about their process—the good, the bad, and the ugly. They will share what questions and considerations are driving their work, what they and their collaborators are learning along the way, what is still challenging, and how their are continuing to adapt.

  • Include the voices of their colleagues, participants, partners, and community in their storytelling.

Make/Think/Share Studios 

Drawing of a hand holding a pencil, drawing a lightbulb

Live; Hands-on art making and reflective practice

90 minutes

The pandemic has required teaching artists to adapt their practice quickly while also continuing to provide vital support and connection for their students and communities. Make/Think/Share Studio presenters will lead participants through hands-on creative practices (in various artistic disciplines) that integrate reflection to foster deeper connections, encourage personal storytelling, and/or promote healing.

  • Materials will be common household items, so that participants can follow along. 

  • The artwork you create may be individual or collaborative. Artworks may be multidisciplinary (e.g., visual art, media art, performance, movement/dance, storytelling, music, etc.) 

Note: While other types of live sessions will be recorded, Make/Think/Share Studios will not be recorded in order to protect the intimacy of the format’s live spaces. 

Real-time ASL interpretation will be provided for all Zoom meetings except for Make/Think/Share Studios, which will have ASL interpretation available by request only.  (contact Ivy Young, Director of Conferences and Learning, at ivyyoung@nationalguild.org by October 14th to request). 

Grounding Practices

Drawing of a person on a yoga mat, stretching

Live or asynchronous (pre-recorded video or audio file)

Up to 20 minutes

Presenters will facilitate a self-care, wellness, and/or healing practice for participants. These grounding practices will be a recurring offering throughout the gathering.  

  • Grounding practices may be still meditations and breathwork, or they may incorporate active embodied practices and movement.

Real Talk Salons

Drawing of a microphone

Live

75–90 minutes 

Real Talk Salon storytellers will embody radical transparency and truth-telling about their community embedded work in action, and how this relates to issues surfaced by the pandemic.

  • Storytellers will share the intentional changes they and their collaborators have made to their practice(s) to directly address the issues and/or inequalities that the pandemic revealed. They will answer:

    • What changed? Why? How were these changes designed and implemented?

    • How will these new practices/programs/policies be carried into the future, in some distant time when we are no longer plagued by COVID?

  • Storytellers will be real, reflective, and transparent.

 

 

 

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